The “doomsday clock,” a scientist-curated measure of how close human civilisation may be to total collapse, ticked one second closer to “midnight” with just 89 seconds to go, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced Tuesday, with artificial intelligence joining the ranks of the most high-priority concerns to humanity.
The Doomsday Clock was set at 89 seconds to midnight Tuesday. (Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images)
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Key Takeaways
- The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit that warns of consequences caused by scientific and technological advances, listed AI among other concerns including climate change, nuclear weapons, war in Ukraine and the Middle East, and the spread of misinformation among the chief problems threatening humanity.
- This year, the organization warned of several threats spurred by artificial intelligence, including the use of AI in military operations and the use of AI to “spread false or inauthentic information across the internet,” which it said can also make misinformation hard to detect.
- Two years ago, the last time the clock was pushed forward, AI was not listed among chief concerns in a Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists press release, though last year, the organization identified AI as a growing, but not yet existential, threat.
- The organization also condemned global political leaders for subverting elections, aiding the “spread of lies and conspiracy theories,” discounting science and suppressing free speech and human rights.
- The one-second tick closer to midnight should be considered an “indication of extreme danger,” the nonprofit said, calling on political leaders to take action to quell nuclear risk, climate change and the spread of biological diseases.
Key Background
The clock, which was first set at 7 minutes to midnight in 1947, is not intended to be a prediction of when the world will end, but is instead a metaphor to spark conversation and action about threats to humanity, the organization has said. Conceived just two years after the world’s first nuclear detonations by scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project, a research project led during World War II to create nuclear weapons, the doomsday clock was initially used to measure the threat nuclear weapons posed to society.
Each year, the organization determines whether or not the clock’s hands will move, and it can move forward, backward or stay the same. The clock hasn’t moved backward since 2010, when scientists moved it from five minutes to midnight to six minutes to midnight following a United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen. Since then, the clock has steadily moved closer to midnight, with its largest jump occurring in 2015, when scientists moved the clock from five minutes to midnight to three minutes to midnight, citing “unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals.”
During President Donald Trump’s first term, the organization moved the clock closer to midnight three times, partially blaming him because he had “made disturbing comments about the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons and expressed disbelief in the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.”
Crucial Quote
“The United States, China, and Russia have the collective power to destroy civilization. These three countries have the prime responsibility to pull the world back from the brink, and they can do so if their leaders seriously commence good-faith discussions about the global threats outlined here,” the organization said in its press release, adding the world “depends on immediate action.”
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